Right Now with Perry Bacon: Why Losing Stephen Colbert's Show Matters

This is right now with Perry Bacon, presented by the DSR network.

Perry Bacon, I'm the host of the New Republic Show right now.

We're talking today on this is the last day Stephen Colbert. We'll be hosting his show on CBS. Make a CBS decided to cancel it, so we're talking to Meredith Conroy. She's a professor of political science at the Cal State University of San Bernardino. And she's an expert on media and politics in the intersection of media and politics.

So I want to talk to her about kind of late night TV and its role in politics. So Meredith, welcome back. Thanks, great to be here. So I want to sort of go through a few what I'm going to call. I'm almost a history of kind of seminal moments of late night TV and politics.

And so rather than ask you questions, I'm going to sort of go through the moment and describe it.

“How I saw it and then have you react to it, because I think you and I were in the same age range and not aging you, but we're in the same range.”

We probably have some of the same cultural references, so we'll do it that way. Okay, that sounds great. All right. So I'm going to start with like 1992. This is kind of the a lot of people in communications and politics.

They just kind of the big moment when late night becomes a part of politics on some level. And this is when President Clinton is running in 1992. And he goes on the Arsenio Hall, Arsenio Hall was a was a late night Tasha host. He's African-American. I think it's relevant with this conversation.

And so Bill Clinton goes on and plays the saxophone. And I mean, it's sort of moment where he's he appears more natural and he appears very charismatic and it's sort of casual. And it's the first time I think a major candidate has been on one of those shows. And I know it was a big moment because my mom mentioned it to me yesterday. We were talking about politician. She viewed as charismatic and maybe handsome even.

And she mentioned Bill Clinton when he was running and playing the saxophones. This really resonated even like years and years later. So did you watch this? So I was talking about this talk about the Arsenio Hall and Bill Clinton, which I don't, which I didn't watch because I was 12. But I looked looking back and I know what it was.

“Yeah, I also don't think I watched, I think I was nine.”

But as you mentioned in political communication, people who study late night.

It's always the first example that is in any academic article they always start with, yeah, Clinton, on Arsenio.

And like you said, the effect of that was that he was likable, personal and his image was softened for a broader audience who may not. It necessarily be politically attentive, which academic research shows that the late night audience is historically. Have been less attentive to politics and late night shows is a gateway for that attention. We call that incidental exposures. So by watching a late night show where you might not expect to be encountering politics you do.

And I'm sure in the 90s, that was especially the case. Yeah, Leno and Carson certainly had made political jokes, but I think that the with Clinton on Arsenio that sort of solidified the like necessity for political candidates to campaign by going on these late night shows with, you know, audiences that are different than 60 minutes. Yeah, so, but that's interesting, your mom talked about how she liked really liked him because of that appearance. Those appearances, I think have that effects. Can I tell, I remember, I'm already jumping ahead to the daily show.

But I remember watching the daily show and seeing Chris Christie play. I think played the bass. Maybe on the show, I should have, oh, or may have been Huckaby. Is Huckaby the bass player?

“I think Huckaby is more of a musician type.”

Yeah, if I remember. I couldn't remember. I remember being like, wow, he is coming off incredibly likable. I mean, they're, you know, they're doing a talent that's unrelated to politics and it's just a different environment. It really can change the way that people see these candidates.

Yeah, what else should we say about Clinton's appearance on Arsenio? Uh, someone to jump to another, I think that, you know, someone jumped to 2003, saw, though, like, two, about 10 years later. I remember, I actually did watch this one, which is the Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to run for governor. And he announced this on that, that was very funny the time and kind of funny now, though he was actually a pretty decent governor. But anyway, he, um, he goes on the J. Leno show and on, and he and J. Leno are friends.

And part of because he's, they're both in Hollywood. Our Arnold Schwarzenegger was an actor. People don't know. And it is an actor, I should say. And so he went on and announced his candidacy on J. Leno and then went on to win the governor's show.

So that was another big moment. That was the person I think somebody had really formerly announced their candidate on one of these shows. Yeah, it made sense. And actor, like I said, in, in the state of California and the, you know, tonight's show is in Furbank as opposed to Letterman, which is in New York.

I definitely watched Leno as a kid.

There was like the Leno Letterman and more. Or you like one or the other. Um, and yeah, I grew up, I would stay up to watch J. Leno.

“And yeah, I remember that moment as well.”

And I think it made sense for his campaign for those reasons we just said.

But, um, again, a moment that Yaki said was probably the first.

I don't know if the candidate is announced. I wouldn't be surprised to be candidates since has announced that they're running on a late night talk show. And I know we're going to talk about this given how much more political issues have become. And that politicians actively democratic politicians, in particular, actually wanted to be on these shows. Uh, so yeah, I'm sure that's that's changed.

But yeah, Schwarzenegger, right, is a Republican running in the state of California. And he noted that because we were sort of considering that now Democrats might announce on the day on a comedy show. But back then Schwarzenegger is a Republican. He was sort of a more moderate version. But he, he and Leno, I think Leno actually got criticized later on for being too favorable to work.

And he gave your friendly and so on.

And also, Leno's politics are probably kind of centurious anyway.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what are there? Trump went on, Kimmel. No, sorry, right. Uh, Trump put on the with Jimmy Fallon and Alan famously, you know, ruffled his hair.

“But I think that appearance was probably one of the last times, you saw a Republican that alive themselves with Trump going on me shows.”

But I jumped too far ahead. Are there other ones you want to talk about? Well, how good. So, uh, so I guess the next thing I'm going to talk about is like John Stewart and net show. The daily show in the early 2000s, like that that became, uh, really sort of pre 2003 to 2008. I remember that show being very big. I remember there was a moment in the 2007 and 2008 campaign where I was covering Biden.

Biden's running for vice president by this time. And I was on the road with Biden. And Biden makes a bunch of, was making out these gaffs. And my editor was like, the daily show featured Joe Biden's gaffs. That means it's really big now. We should do a story about it at the point where that, particularly among liberals, J.

You know, um, just John Stewart net period from like O3 to O8 was almost on a Simon editor. So that was, that was a really similar show for liberals in that period. Is that that seemed right to you?

“Yeah, I think it was like a camp miss for college educated audiences.”

I don't, I think I don't know how liberal the audience is where I know there's some academic research looking at who watched the daily show. And it did tend to be people who were already highly attentive. Because one of the debates in political science was whether or not the daily show, particular and other, you know, mock new shows created cynicism. And there was even this special issue in a political science journal where they had mock debates and mock trial. I'm mock trial putting John Stewart on trial to argue about whether or not he was creating cynicism.

And one of the debates was like, well, he's not, he's creating skepticism, but not necessarily cynicism. But yeah, it was a, it was a camp miss for myself when I was in call undergrad and graduate school. Like we, you just didn't miss it. You had to watch it in order to have conversations with your friends the next day. Uh, and the, yeah, the audience. Learn from it that you're already in, or is it more humorous?

Did you actually learn stuff that you, you see things at the first time of their, or tell me about that?

Sounded a little bit older, so I was, yeah, yeah. I learned a lot. And there have been studies that show that people did actually from late night and those satirical shows. Became more interested in the news as a result of watching. Yes, the people who watched the daily show probably already were highly informed in the first place.

But it did lead to additional news seeking from more traditional sources. So there were positive effects learning effects. I learned a lot and then when I went on to be a professor, I am not ashamed to admit that I used, I had the DVDs, remember the indecision series. So every election they had indecision 2004 indecision 2008.

I used, I wore those DVDs out for my students because I thought that satir is a vehicle for understanding a lot of what our politics out. You know, what our politics is. And so I learned a lot and I think my students did too. And then jobs to even had a fake American government textbook. Did you know this?

No. A physical copy of American government textbook organized just like any other American government textbook. And yeah, mocking government mostly. But we should say that originally the daily show I think their main foil was the media. Like over time they came to mock politicians and I think John, sorry, Colbert report in particular targeted politicians more,

especially at the bottom on the show and just mocked them to their faces in those better no district serieses. But I think the daily show's main target was you, the media. And that's like a useful vehicle or like a way to stay more neutral politically when your target is the media, which is universally.

You know, and Chad and remember, and that's I remember John Stewart went on.

There was a show called Crossfire and John Stewart went on the sort of mocked the idea that they made every issue live robbers as a general representative public.

But what was there on the daily show itself? What was that critique of the media in the early days?

“I don't tell you remember what were the, what were the, a what grounds would it critique of the media?”

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Thank you and enjoy the show. They would, well, definitely Fox News and the way that they used sound and images and, you know, eagles and flags and iconic American imagery to create to make people feel something. So I think Fox in particular was their primary source of ridicule. I do think they took on the MSNBC as well. Like cable news.

I essentially cable news. I think was who and they would have lots of montages of either double speak or having on, you know, these mock debates where no one is really saying anything. And so I wonder if the, you know, his crossfire. That crossfire upset, which probably people watching this or who do watch this know about that and it, I used to show that in class as well. You know, he takes down, yeah, Tucker Carlson and Paul Bicola for having a performative discussion and not a real discussion.

And I'm sure that once he saw, I mean, that was one of those videos that went viral at a time when something went viral and became was a topic of conversation for a month or longer.

“And I think that maybe he was like, wow, this really resonates.”

Let's keep on this. Let's keep going after cable news. But I think Fox was the bigger focus of their criticisms. But I think MSNBC probably as well. And probably CNN.

So I didn't know. So so we'll come to Stephen Colbert now. So he's on the Daily Shuffer. I didn't watch the Daily Shuffer as much other people did. But in, so in 2006, I was at the White House Correspondence Center.

And Colbert was the guest. And he was the comedic guest. And it was a, we're in the, and it was a, it was a very aggressive attack on George W Bush and his administration. But very subtly done through jokes and so on. Everyone's looking at the table and we're all like, oh, this is much, this is oh six before Bush has become very unpopular.

And so yeah, people were like, oh, he really gave a skating speech about Bush, but in this sort of mock style. So it was, it was harder to sort of realize that, but yeah.

“Yeah, I think that he's so good at that.”

And on his show, the Colbert report, yeah, where he was smoking. Villarale, I think for a long, most of the Villarale. I think for a long time, people actually didn't know. If he was performing or not, I think I genuinely think it was at a bay amongst viewers. I'm going to probably was settled pretty quickly.

But he's so good at that. And I think he's still good at it. He's think he's still good at it.

I do think Colbert in particular has always been civic minded.

You know, when you hear him talk about his show. And when he decided to leave Colbert report and go to, you know, late night that it had a lot to do with feeling like that. That mocking was becoming too real and almost humanizing what he was trying to take down. And so that was what led to this next transition. In that sense, I think he's, and I know we'll talk about this.

But he does seem to be, in this case, it was out of necessity. He does seem to know where the winds are blowing and following them. I mean, he was at the height of, you know, set satirical news. And he was the height of late night in a political context. I think the height of late night was probably the lentil letterment wars.

But in a, as, as in a political context, he was at the height of it. And now, whatever he does next podcast. Like Dom Stewart, I don't know. But yeah. I think that early period from 2000 to 2008, they were like.

That Schobert and Stewart were now, didn't say we are liberals. And then someone is, they were probably some of the more prominent and effective critics of George W. Bush. Yeah, right. I'm right. Mesopotamia with John Stewart had that segment.

Mesopotamia, Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, more basically. About the Iraq war, absolutely. But that's the one thing about media is one time.

That's a lot of times why media seems politicized because they are critical of power.

And yeah, they were on air when Bush was an office for eight years. I think they would have gone after a Democrat as, you know, hard probably.

Because it was Bush and because that was the height of those shows.

I think they became, you know, coded, more liberal coded.

Because they were critical of the people in power and the people in power were the Republicans.

And it does seem like John Stewart in particular has a personal political, you know, strong opinion about Iraq and 9/11 and he's denolizing as most people know for 9/11 first responders. And made that kind of his a personal political, you know, put a view.

“I'm going to move the 2010, which I think was the height of their kind of power on some level.”

So John Stewart and Colbert had this rally for sanity. I think it was called at the National Wall. At this point, they didn't make it. It was, it was, they didn't, they wouldn't acknowledge. It was sort of like it felt to me like a reaction to the Tea Party.

They were sort of saying the Tea Party has had these crazy rallies. Yeah, Gordon Colbert would not say we are Obama supporters. But their ethos, their system humor was very in line with Obama. And I thought the 2010 event was in sort of frustration with what was happening in the country, driven by the Tea Party is how I, how I do that.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the Tea Party rallies for sure. And this was a reaction. Did you cover it by chance? I didn't actually end up going to them.

Not totally sure why because it was, it was weird because we couldn't quite figure out. They were kind of not saying is this is the political rally or not. It was sort of, I don't know if you remember it was like nay, they weren't. They didn't want to commit to it being.

They never wanted to commit to being political figures.

It was part of what was going on. Right. And I didn't go or know anyone that went, but I obviously knew about it and probably had wanted to go. Because I was a super fan.

“And I think that what they were doing was good.”

A lot of it had to do with the fact that I personally became march shouldn't politics because of that kind of delivery. Yeah. But I think the, I don't think the event, I think, I think they've since commented on it that they, I don't know if they necessarily regret it, but they don't necessarily, they necessarily see like the function of it and that trying to stay.

Non-partisan, you know, made it so it was less effective. Yeah. So 2015, I think they correctly assessed it in the Obama years. They were less relevant, they're actually less, I think this part was going. So by 2015, two things have been important.

John Stewart decides to leave the Daily Show and stop hosting that. And Steven Colbert, as you sort of alluded to, got kind of a little bit bored with the Colbert character. And then the late night job with Letterman opens and he replaces these chosen to replace Letterman. These things both happen in 2015. So John Stewart and a graduate out of the Daily Show for a while, at least,

and then Colbert graduates to sort of network TV. Yeah.

“I think that's right because much of what they needed was incompetence.”

And you can criticize the Obama administration for a lot of things. But incompetence isn't probably one of them. And so I imagine that they lacked material. And there may have been less of a demand for that kind of political commentary. I wish when I was preparing for this, I was thinking about how irony and satire function.

And Dana Young, I think you're aware of her research. She's at University of Delaware, but she's written about how liberals are drawn to satire. And irony and Republicans are drawn to, like, outrage, commentary. Her books called Irony and Outrage. And it talks about the political functions of these emotions that can emerge from comedy.

And those shows became so politicized that they almost like ceased to do what they had set up to do. I think, yeah, right. And that, of course, late night has became politicized. Next. We'll come back to that. We'll come back to that.

Yeah, but I think you're right about the evolution of it. And the, like, the need for those shows was less obvious during the Obama administration. And I didn't really watch much of Trevor Noah. I watch it now, but Trevor Noah took over, I think, initially. Yeah.

Yeah, I think Trevor Noah, let me come back. I think, let me hold on to Trevor Noah. So I want to ask, 2015 also, I did watch this as well. Early in, I don't think I get a, I don't think I had a graceance of what Colbert himself thought. And then how, what his view of the world was, but in 2015, in September, he interviews Joe Biden. This is when I think by this time Joe Biden's son, Beau was either died. And so there was a discourse about whether Biden was going to run for president or whether he was grieving and he shouldn't run.

Colbert was very sympathetic to Biden, kind of encouraged him to run. They talk about their share Catholicism.

And on some level, that was the first of my realized, you know, Colbert is kind of a Catholic Democrat like Joe Biden.

That's kind of what I took away from that.

Did you take away from the humor for that moment? Yeah. I do. And they also had their share, you know, experiences with grief, Colbert famously lost.

“I think a dad and a brother and a plain accident, and then was raised by a single mom.”

Joe Biden, obviously, had lost from a car accident, his first wife and a child and then, yeah, Beau.

So I think they connection on that and the Catholicism, yeah, they had lots of things to bond over. Going back, Biden, I think Biden thrived in conversations with both of them. One of my favorite conversations I know I'm going back in time. Do you remember when you were in Colbert? Yeah, I think it thrives with that kind of, yeah, I can forth.

But Biden was on steward in 2006 and like made a joke about how he lied about having Col miners and his family. Do you remember this? No, it wasn't. He says, I tried that crap. It doesn't work.

He was like, oh, it's from Scranton. I assumed there was a Col miner in my family, and it's not going to wasn't. But Joe Biden's no-malarky, you know, just sort of being authentically who he was and honest.

“I think did work well in those spaces and with, I do think Colbert is such a good interviewer.”

I mean, he did, one of the things that he does on late night, right? Yeah, he does on like engineers or like scientists to talk about, not to say that they, those aren't through the boring fields. But he is able to get people excited about what they're talking about. And yeah, I do think that interview was really good and probably may have informed, you know, Biden's decision to eventually to eventually run. But you're, I think your question about his Colbert's politics being murky.

I think that's right. And I also, I kind of wonder if they formed in these roles. He's talked about not really caring about politics before he started as a correspondent on the daily show. And I imagine that he became more online politically with that job. And, you know, that things that personally have happened in all of these roles probably.

I don't actually think his politics, that point, 20 to 15. I don't think his politics are actually, yeah. I think he's not Elizabeth Warren in terms of having a lot of views on things. And it's sort of like Joe Biden who I don't think is dead. Joe Biden's, he's Catholic, he's a nice person.

That drives his politics more than he's read a bunch of books on Colbert's. My sense is that we're being pulverized too a little bit, you know, yes. Yeah, I think so. Well, Jeff, the 2017, yeah. So this is when Trump is elected. And now we have a lot of TV hosts that I think are interesting.

Colbert is very critical of Trump.

Interestingly enough, Jimmy Kimmel, who I had never thought of being interesting and never really watched, becomes like the voice of he goes, he's defending Obamacare, criticizing Republicans, he talks about pre-existing conditions and why we need to cover people with them. I know that Bill Cassidy just lost Louisiana, the Senate of Bill Cassidy lost his primary. Back in 2017, Cassidy went on Kimmel's show and assured him that the healthcare bill would not be that bad.

And then the healthcare bill came out and it was pretty bad. And Kimmel sort of ripped him and said, you lied to me on your show. Like that was a really Kimmel I had thought is always being sort of dull, nothing to say. And he was very political. You also had staff Myers, also very critical of Trump. Yeah.

You noted Trevor Noah, at this point, has a show, has taken over John Stewart. And he, with his background as being from South Africa, does a great job to the analyzing Trump to dictators abroad. That was an interesting role he plays. I had forgotten until I was thinking that this is Samantha B, who's also a graduate of the Daily Show.

Also for this period, how the show and is actually a really, very good show, also very critical of Trump.

So you have this unusual thing where comedy late night becomes like five different shows attacking Trump, who's obviously terrible. But I think in a certain sense that was, if you go back, that was a moment where late night was very actively opposing the president. Oh, yeah. I had forgotten about Kimmel's ACA segments. So I did used to show the one where they went on the street and asked people about the ACA and then asked people about Obamacare.

And then I think, right, that would, that would probably, like, radicalize anyone to, to see how people's opinions on the exact same thing in real, real time shifted when you look at it. Yeah. Yeah.

“And I remember that was a segment that they did on Kimmel.”

You know, they walked around talking to people. I actually don't know where Kimmel's is filmed. Okay. But I don't know. Yeah.

I know the night shows in Burbank, but yeah. So walking around and talking to people, I forgot about that.

Um, but yeah, that those that moment was very, um, salient for me, because I ...

And I watched all these late night shows.

Um, I've just always just loved late night comedy.

And I love political comedy. Uh, and then the, I mean, the, the moment with Trump is that he sort of forced their hand, you know, with his attacks on media as being the enemy. Um, the enemy of the people.

“It's funny because that's what their stick was.”

Like they went after the media. And then now they got grouped in as media. You know, it wasn't just now people that broadcast or, or, you know, online publications. They were now part of that group that group that was as being demonized. And, um, make sense that they would have to, you know, go after or respond to those criticisms.

And this one thing I didn't thought of until you're talking is that in the little letter of an era, those, I think it was, I think it was obviously letter moon probably both of her Democrats. But a little in letter moon trying to reach these big mass audiences by 2017. Yeah.

There was no way, you know, you weren't, Colbert wasn't reaching 20 million people.

So being more ideological, being more partisan was, because he already had a niche audience. There's nothing, there's no real broad task by that point, right? Yeah. And I think that that also explains the shift in their, yeah, what they talked about. Because these audiences now, any late, now this is the problem with late night.

You just, the fragmentation of our media environment is such. A point meant television is over, right? People don't sit down at 10 p.m. on Thursday night to watch J. Leno. They're watching, they're watching clips later on. And these networks are starting to get hit to that to improve it, to improve their ratings.

And they're still obviously struggling. Um, the, uh, the popularity was narrow as you said, did niche audiences. So we call it narrow casting, broadcasting is ABC, the network is like narrow casting. You know, your audience and you go and you give them the information that they want. It also creates more of those parasocial relationships because that you feel more personally attached to them.

And you just have this cyclical effect that your audience becomes more and more, um, more like a community and more like your friends. And then you continue to tailor your content to what they want and what they're demanding. And it becomes, yeah, like for other audiences, they wouldn't even think about watching those shows. But for the audiences to do, it's, you know, part of their regular scroll.

“So I don't know what's very talented, but I think his show in the first trauma administration was,”

was, was certainly less relevant than John Stewart's critiques of Bush. And that's because why? Why do you think that is like, I don't think people are watching. Trevor know what to understand. What was wrong with, um, Trump, the way they were tuning in to Stewart to watch Bush, you know, 15 years prior. So what do we think that is explained by?

Uh, I think his approach is comedic approach is different. You know, his, I think he's more high level, high-minded. And it, less, let's say John Stewart is like slapstick or, um, you know, I don't want to say like fart jokes or whatever because that's not what Stewart's doing. But I think that, um, Noah's comedy, yeah, it's more high level.

It's more, you have to think about the context in that this all exists in. And yeah, he brought his, as you already mentioned, you know, experiences. You know, South African and black man and that it took more time for people to kind of get what he was doing. But I think it eventually, you know, became, uh, more popular. And then you left and started his own, a different thing now.

He's doing it like a podcast. We're going to talk about podcasts.

“That's what the world was going, I think, in a little bit.”

So, yeah, it's hard when a new host comes in. They're not going to do it the same way. I think it's cool that he didn't do it the same way because that's not his, that wasn't what he did. Yeah. So I'm going to move, I was, so the Trump era, these all these host criticizing him, Biden comes in.

These hosts are less critical because they're more, more, they're more left.

I think it's better to say. But I remember that in 2024, John Stewart comes back to the daily show. And one of his first episodes were one is he, and where he's like, very angry about, why do we have these two old people running for president? You know, Donald Trump, but also Joe Biden, why is he running still as seems like?

At this point, I think Joe Biden is skipping interviews and John Stewart is pointing out why is this guy not doing interviews? It seems like that's a problem, so he's not up to it. And I remember that was the first time where I saw liberals, my friends, people I know, being like John Stewart sucks. He's doing this both sides crap at the rest of the media was.

And that was an interesting moment because I think seven months later, looked like John Stewart was correct. But in some ways, that was the first time where I think we're John Stewart's politics. We're kind of different than the average Democrats were for the first time I thought.

Yeah, and I think it made sense that that's when he came back.

Because I think he got uncomfortable with being his only target being Republican and Trump.

And so he, when he saw an opportunity where I can be critical, I could be what I want to be,

which is critical of bad politics or bad political decisions. That that was a, yeah, a door that he saw open and jumped through, and definitely was part of the folks that were critical of Biden. And yeah, I imagine that the audience didn't want to hear that sort of thing. Because in the next sense, right, there's lots of people targeting Democrats.

So you come at that point, we already talked about this. You come to those places for something that you feel good about watching and doesn't make you question, that I should say that.

“That's not necessarily the case, so I think we don't want to question our political beliefs,”

but that it was just a safer place to critique the other side. And so some of those points were probably, yeah, not received well by the audience, but as you said, and you probably was, you know, that had people listened to people like Stewart sooner than 2024 could have gone differently. So 2025 Trump's second term, I guess Samantha B doesn't have a show by this time.

Trevor Noah is not on, but Stewart is back in this daily show. It's kind of doing what it used to do.

But I feel like 2025, the host or a little less critical of Trump,

and they were in 2017, is it right? The late nighthouse? Yeah, the late nighthouse, yes. Yeah, I think people were tired of Trump criticism, and yeah. And it's like, what else can you say? Right. Right, excuse me, I think this correct as well.

So when CBS decides, this is a July, we're going to cancel the Colbert on the late night show. What did you like, I guess my reactions were, yes, this seems like CBS, or whoever's buying CBS might want to play K-Trump. But I'm also open to the idea that the late night era, the era of one person, one white guy, most of the time,

interviewing whoever this celebrity of the day is over because we have 98. All the celebrities have their own podcasts, everyone is a podcast, like these people are all over the place. So I'm not, I'm, I don't like what happened because I like Colbert,

“and I think this is probably doing some little censorship, but in this, but I'm not.”

There probably is, we probably have left the era of late nightness. Yeah, I think let's setting politics aside.

I was thinking, the fact that CBS, that's the first to jettison in a late night talk show,

is does suggest that it's political because they're, you know, the new ownership there and other decisions that were made that make sense. But I think that what we talked about earlier is also factoring in, this, the appointment television era is over. I don't think the era of interviewing politicians is over.

There's some that do quite, I mean, hot ones, you know, I was thinking of shows where interviewing is like people watch it. Hot ones, depending on your political orientation, like Z-way, or what are some other interview, I mean, the smart list podcast, the armchair expert, like these people.

All the main thing of these people politicians a lot. Yeah, they bring politicians on.

“So I think there's still a demand for that format.”

And for sketches too, like I think Sarnaya Live is still really popular. And has been better about figuring out how to use clip the clip economy to keep people interested. And like I said, I don't think the network's yet to figure out how to measure the attention that they get from those, in those audiences in all those spaces. But the, yes, so I think the formatting is affecting late night.

CBS is obviously the first to offload the actual show. Do I think the rest are going to possibly? It does seem though that Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel are still popular and figuring out this new format and these new audiences. Fallen I'm really interested in because he's like the least political of them all.

But he's also his ratings are dropping as well. The ratings are going down because the ratings are going down. Yes. Exactly. It's kind of like that debate about like blue sky and Twitter. It's like social media is dying. Like in social media is dying, at least for sure.

Yes. Yeah. And so I think it's just a formatting issue. And if CBS wants to try and figure out what works there instead, good luck. But I don't, I think that some of these late night shows will hang on.

Some of these networks will try and hang on to them to figure out if they can. It had figure out how to keep their audiences around or where their audiences are going. I didn't follow them. Uh, yeah. So I think it's both.

It's, yes, the politicization and Trump politicizing late night has contributed to it,

It's certainly not the only reason.

Yeah.

Well, going back to getting us.

So if you're looking for the Arsenio Hall and Bill Clinton example of like, if you're a politician today, where you go to reach the sort of mass audience to show that you're a nice normal person. Right. I think you have to go everywhere. I think you have to do,

“and I think you have to tailor your message.”

You know, they're all, I mentioned Trump hates the view and they're all on the view. That's one that the view is also a talk show in a different way. It is like actually very political, right? It is interesting. Yeah, political science, we call the view and the issues we've been talking about.

Soft news. I don't know if already mentioned that, but the right soft news is like, yeah, you get incidentally exposed politics, we're not expecting it. I don't know if that's the case anymore for the view because of how political it's become. Yeah.

And then they even decide on the very. Have someone who's more conservative and someone who's more liberal to have that. And so it is a political show. But yeah, the view is relevant here. I mean, Obama and McCain both did the view.

You mentioned the view is not in the late night.

The time is not the same and it's not just been in some ways. Super fun. It is a interview people and they have and it's not one white guy, but they interview people and they talk about politics a lot. Like the view would be talks about politics all the time.

And has been his very, has the same views as Colbert and the other, and the guys in terms of being Trump and anti-Trump. So I know Trump also hates the view and has also been trying to sort of. get a matter of attention to them as well. Yeah.

“But I think if you're ready for office now, you have to do a lot more shows.”

So you don't have the benefit of a single show that has a really big audience like Leno or Letterman or Orcineo. But you have lots of shows with audiences that are attuned and care. And it take it as an endorsement. So like when you go on.

Why shouldn't say that? Because like cricket media doesn't necessarily endorse everyone that they have on. So you have to do a lot of things. So you have to do a lot of things. So you have to do a lot of things.